1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a land mine, and particularly to an antipersonnel splinter mine, comprising a mine case which contains a plurality of pre-produced splinters and which is to be thrown upwardly by means of an ejecting charge and brought to explosion, at a predetermined level, in a pyrotechnical, mechanical, or electrical way, and in which the splinters are supported on, or, when breaking lines are provided, constitute themselves, the inner shell of the mine case.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Antipersonnel splinter means are known per se for a long time. Up to the present, with such mines, a substantially horizontal effect of the splinters has been desired, primarily for fighting attacking troops. For this purpose, splinter mines of the prior art contain a plurality of heavy splinters, since such splinters ensure a wide radius of action.
Because not only concepts of defensive strategy, but also tactics, particularly combat tactics, are undergoing changes, what is now required is an antipersonnel splinter mine having an only limited radius of action, for example of 20 meters, and having no effect beyond a certain distance, for example of 50 meters. Such mines can be planted at a relatively small distance from the force's lines or in front of other objects to be protected, without endangering the force's troops. Due to their limited radius of action, mines of this kind are excellently suitable also for territorial home defense, for example, for protecting and securing vital objects, such as power stations, transformer stations, dams, airports, depots, or the like. In addition, antipersonnel splinter mines, if used zonally, are suitable for fighting individually not detactable targets of covert warfare, for example, sabotage troops. An antipersonnel mine may be set off in various ways, depending on the application, for example, by means of span-wires or tread fuses, or also by electrical remote control.
German Offenlegungsschrift No. 2 300 230 (U.S. Pat. No. 3,868,905) provides a bounding mine comprising a mine body which can be fragmented into splinters by a detonating explosive charge. According to this disclosure, the lower portion of the mine body is arched downwardly thus substantially of hemispherical shape. This hemispherical portion is joined to an upper portion which is either cylindrical or conical or frustoconical.
With such a design of the mine body, an improved effect of the splinters is intended, particularly an improved spray effect markedly directed toward the ground, thus with a component of the splinter distribution which is directed "to a considerable extent" downwardly. A further intention of this design is to largely prevent irregularities in the effect of the splinters.
Even though this prior art U.S. Pat. No. 3,868,905 is right in realizing that the splinter effect, as well as the spray effect, largely depends on the geometry of the mine body; the provided solution is by no means suitable for actually coming to the goal aimed at.